'Cat Tracks ... On the Road Again ....

Former Bobcats are in motion ... how much that motion resembles poetry, I will leave to other observers ... but I can tell you that since my hip surgery, I have developed (and am exercising madly to exorcise) a little Charlie Chaplin-like "tilt" to my walk ... also not unlike a penguin's side to side sway. So much for the time some of us devoted to walking with a book on our heads way back in junior high and high school, as we tried to develop the perfect, come-hither (but not TOO close) carriage.

Today's post is devoted to assorted esoterica which may be of interest. I've had e-mails from a couple of 'cat contributors ... and now pass same along for your enlightenment.

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Nicki and Jim are taking some time to visit with friends. She e-mailed last night that her computer time may be curtailed to some extent, so if anyone leaves a "Comment" which does not receive her usual quick review and publishing, be patient. But please don't let this deter ... or excuse ... you from leaving those comments.

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Mike Spradley was in Childress a couple of weeks ago for the Bradford family reunion (his wife Ada's sister is married to a Bradford), which apparently coincided with the latest "All School Reunion" and included a reunion of the CHS Class of 1967. Mike was also away from his office to receive his SEG award in San Antonio this week. Once he catches up, he has promised a couple of really good stories ... one involving him marching naked through the desert with a machine gun and a cohort of female Israeli Army soldiers (I am NOT making this up!), and another having to do with his short stint (along with Jimmy Czewski and Don Seal) as freshman Bobcat cheerleaders (not making that one up either, although I'll bet most of you didn't know it). He also sent word of his latest "Close Encounter of the Bobcat Kind" ... which I post here (in Bobcat blue) with his permission.

During the weekend of the reunion, he ran into Mike (a/k/a Mikey, also a/k/a Hodie) Pennell (CHS Class of 1962) who married a girl from the class of 67…..I told him he was robbing the cradle….

Funny story….you can post if you wish……..I have seen and talked to Teedle two times since 1960…..last time was in July 1988

This past weekend……I am standing in line at the doughnut shop…………..behind me….over my left shoulder…..I hear this voice and I know absolutely positively who it is……………

I turned around……and sho” nuff……there is Glen “Teedle” Sanders……….and I can still recognize that voice after all these years……

We had a great chat……..his sister’s [Punkie Sanders Bradford] kids are actually my nephews and nieces….thru the Bradfords……

Gotta git….

Sprad

I'll just add that the last time I saw Glen Sanders (CHS Class of 1961 ... and no, we didn't go over Thrill Hill at 80 m.p.h. ... I think and hope we're both less foolhardy now) was in Childress just after Paula died. We also had a wonderful visit, despite the occasion, and I can attest that Teedle's voice has NOT changed at all. I was also able to recognize him from a block away. Glen works for the U.S. Postal Service there, unless he has retired since I saw him.

Okay, Mike. Now we're waiting for the stories ....

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Mama Sheila has dipped her toe in the blogwater by leaving a short comment under "Finding Your Voice on the Blog". The toe is still intact, so we are hopeful we may find future "comments" and stories and an update from her. And from you ...?

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And as for me (a/k/a Guinevere the Druid Goddess), I will be out of blog- and e-touch for a few days, making a quick trip to Clarendon to see Shannon and family, and to Childress to visit with Raenell and Dana Purcell (CHS Class of 1960) over lunch, and with my family at the cemetery. When I was young and stupid (probably still stupid, just not young, drat it!), I used to wonder why my grandfather, Papa, spent so much time at the cemetery, so I think he will be particularly pleased to know that I now understand, and am there.

As for the trip itself, I have always loved traveling, of whatever variety. John Masefield (once Poet Laureate of Great Britain) wrote of his need to "go down to the seas again, To the lonely sea and the sky ...." John Gillespie McGee, Jr. perfectly described the longing of aviators and other non-earth bound spirits to slip "the surly bonds of earth and [dance] the skies on laughter-silvered wings ...." My father, who was a bomber pilot during World War II, introduced me to that poem, and to the wonder of flight itself, when I was a child. And I am particularly fond of the ineffable serenity of a long, solitary road trip … the communion of mind and spirit with vast expanses of landscape, haunting desert giving way to mountains and pine and the fresh air of higher altitudes, towering red buttes and mesas, the flat vistas of the Caprock and the Llano Estacado, the lush green of the coastal plains.

To me, there is something spiritual in watching the morning azure sky fading to Columbia blue at midday, darkening again to azure and then cobalt as the “solar boat” reaches its nightly port and the stars blink on one by one. (Jack Kerouac, the uber-Road-ster, posited: "Maybe that's what life is ... a wink of the eye and winking stars.")

Those times of quiet peace seem to me somehow sacred, blessed, transcendent of normal emotions and experiences, filled with thoughts of the past, present and future, and of those we have known and sometimes loved, the living and the dead. It has also always seemed perfectly normal to talk to them then, and listen for their answers in the rushing wind outside the car. Sometimes those answers come to me with complete clarity … and sometimes I get really strange looks from others on the road, watching me carry on an involved and animated conversation with myself ....

As I prepare to leave for Texas, I am anticipating the thoughts that will, as they always do, arise unbidden, and conversations with those unseen ... but perhaps not that far away. Kerouac also wrote: "I hope it is true that man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but the great consciousness of life." So, if you feel something slipping silently past you on the breeze, “Don’t be concerned, it will not harm you. It’s only me ….”

Catch ya on the flip side, 'lil' buddy ....